Conspiracy theories alleging Jewish or Israeli control over governments and foreign policy more than tripled across major social media platforms after the outbreak of the Iran war, according to a report released on Thursday by B’nai B’rith International and Fighting Online Antisemitism.
The report compared activity during the 38 days before the war began, from Jan. 21 to Feb. 27, with the first 38 days after fighting erupted, from Feb. 28 to April 6. Researchers analyzed thousands of posts using a defined set of “keywords, narratives and coded expressions” related to conspiracies of Jewish or Israeli influence, per the report.
The organizations identified 988 posts containing such narratives before the war and 3,138 afterward—a 217.6% increase.
“Moments of war or geopolitical uncertainty generate spikes in antisemitism—whether that’s the war in Ukraine, the COVID-19 pandemic—and all the more predictably, a war involving Israel,” Alina Bricman, director of European Union affairs at B’nai B’rith, told JNS.
“What was striking was how quickly the online ecosystem settled on a common explanation,” she said. “Within a matter of days, very different conspiracy communities were increasingly telling the same story: that of ‘ZOG’ or ‘Zionist Occupied Government,’ a conspiracy whereby Jews secretly manipulate governments and drag countries into war.”
According to the report, antisemitic conspiracy theories on social media before the conflict were “relatively fragmented, relying on a mixture of references to secret elites, ‘shadow governments,’ global cabals, and anti‐establishment themes.” After the war began, the narratives shifted toward explicit claims of Jewish or Israeli control over Western governments and foreign policy, with a marked increase in posts decrying “Zionist Occupied Governments.”
Posts mentioning ZOG rose from 485 before the war to 1,977 afterward. Such posts accounted for 49.1% of all content analyzed during the prewar period, compared with 63% after the conflict began, per the report.
Engagement also climbed sharply. Likes increased from about 290,000 before the war to 690,000 afterward, while shares jumped from roughly 23,000 to 230,000.
Bricman said the ZOG narrative gained traction because it offers “a one-size-fits-all” explanation for disparate grievances.
“Anti-war anger, distrust of government, hostility toward Israel, old myths about Jewish power can all be explained away with one simple claim—that U.S. policy is being secretly controlled by ‘Zionist’ interests,” she told JNS.
She added that public figures “such as Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson have popularized narratives about Israeli control of U.S. policy or hidden influence and made them mainstream.”
“We also know from a growing body of research that hostile state actors—including Iran, Russia and China—have repeatedly instrumentalized antisemitic narratives as part of broader information operations aimed at undermining trust, deepening societal divisions and destabilizing democratic societies,” she said.
“What we are seeing is an ecosystem in which extremist communities, influential commentators, platform dynamics and, in some cases, state-backed information operations can all reinforce one another,” Bricman said.
Bricman said FOA shared the report’s findings with Meta, TikTok and X.
“TikTok agreed to meet with the team to discuss the report and its findings, which reflects a willingness to engage, although it remains to be seen whether that translates into meaningful improvements in enforcement,” she told JNS.
“Meta responded by outlining its existing policies, yet this sat uneasily alongside our findings that approximately 70% of the content we reported remained online,” she said.
Bricman said X did not provide a substantive response. (JNS sought comment from the three social media companies.)
“Platforms should strengthen their ability to detect evolving forms of coded antisemitism, particularly during periods of international crisis, and regularly assess whether their enforcement mechanisms are keeping pace with rapidly shifting narratives,” Bricman told JNS. “For this, closer and more genuine cooperation with civil society would go a long way.”
